Caitlin the Rosebud

Richard saw an advert in the paper for a carnival rosebud and I thought it was something Caitlin would love!  We’ve been to a few carnivals, mainly in countryside locations, and Caitlin always says she wants to be a carnival princess.  We went along to the selection process and I soon realised carnivals in the city were a bit tacky!  The other applicants were a bit chavvy!!  During the selection there was an interview…with a panel of 4 judges!!!!!!  Bit over the top for a 5 year old rosebud potential!!  A few of the other applicants had high heels on and very fancy dresses…you get the picture…so I assumed Caitlin had no chance and was a bit relieved!  It turned out that everyone was a winner!!!!!!  Caitlin got a sash and a trophy and almost went to bed with the trophy she was over the moon!!  We then had to go to the secretary’s house to collect her dress.

When I pulled up at the lady’s house….errrrmmmm…lets just say it was obvious which one was hers…..and when we went in even Caitlin was amazed!!  She had about 50 “amazing” dresses!!!!  There was another new rosebud there for her dress collection and her mum commented that the dress they had her daughter try on was a bit “my big fat gypsy wedding-esq”…she was right…it was…a lot of them were!  I had been thinking it but didn’t have the cheek to say it!  So we left with the plainest dress that Caitlin fitted, along with fake flowers, tiara and corsage!  I’m slightly sceptical about our carnival career…but Caitlin can’t wait!  I just hope I’m allowed to take photos because I can see a few spectacular (password protected) posts following our big fat gypsy/toddlers and tiaras journey!!!!!!!!!

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Birthday tea

After our morning at the Trafford Centre we opened presents with Daddy….

It’s really weird..I thought he would be begging to open presents all morning but he didn’t ask once!  I think he was more pre-occupied with being 4 and closer in age to Caitlin again!!!  He got cars, books, t-shirts and some mini storage boxes from us;  lego from Nan;  dressing up and science putty from Alex; money from a few other people and more cars from Caitlin and Austin!!

For tea on Noah’s birthday we went to our local pub for a meal with Nanny, Grandad, Amy and Tina.  Noah sat in the birthday chair!!!

We had tea and then went home for cake and more presents!!! 

…where he got more cars and clothes.  We then had a cake, but I couldn’t find our candles so he just had to have 1!!!

It was then almost 10pm so he went off to bed very chuffed to be 4 and very tired!!

Noah turns 4

Today Noah turned 4!!  He has been super excited about his birthday for weeks!!  Caitlin gets excited but in a really calm way…maybe a bit of jumping for a few minutes but then back to just smiling again. Noah gets properly excited…counting the days down and constantly asking is it his birthday (or whatever other exciting event it is) yet.

On the morning of his birthday I let him choose what he wanted to do.  He said he wanted to go out for dinner…to McDonalds!!  We don’t have a McDonalds by us anymore so we went to the Trafford Centre and while they were eating their dinner they saw spongebob squarepants walk past!  Once we were done we went looking for him but he was on a break, so we went for a wander to a couple of shops while we waited.  We passed a bungee trampoline thing which they wanted to go on so we did….

Unfortunately Caitlin got the better assistant and she got loads longer than Noah which he was a bit upset about, she must have got about twice as long!  But they both enjoyed it….

On our way back to find Spongebob I spotted krispy kreme donuts and asked if they wanted to go there…

I think they were a bit much for them as Austin refused to even try his, Caitlin ate about half and Noah ate about 3 bites!!!  They did insist on each other tasting their one…..

After that we went back to find Spongebob, but we’d missed him again…..Richard was due home soon so we gave up and headed home to do presents!!!!!!

The party and the dislocated elbow!!!

After the trauma of Caitlin’s party I swore I was never ever doing it again!!!  But as Noah’s birthday approached I started to feel guilty, especially when he got invited to parties for the other kids in his class….so I priced up entertainers since the entertainment was the traumatic part of Caitlin’s, but I just couldn’t justify the price of them especially not since we are currently about to have to pay the balance on our loft.  I was really tempted by the spider and animal man who went to the party of a boy in Caitlin’s class…..  I then considered a room with just a bouncy castle but I started have flashbacks to Caitlin’s party (and I worried about injuries!!) and decided to have a small party in a soft play!  It was great…and stress free….well apart from Austin managing to dislocate his elbow!

I actually hate soft play parties…I feel like they are a real cop out, but they do sort everything out for you and since our house is still not fit for visitors it was the only option if I wanted to keep it small, so he was allowed to chose 10 friends from his class (and Caitlin!) 

On the morning of the party i’d got dressed and Noah said to me…”you don’t look very smart!”  I then asked if I could still come to the party and he said “I suppose so”…charming!!

But the soft play was really good, they crowned Noah as the party king and made a real fuss of him.

They also played some party games with them….

They had to do the actions to the dance and then sit down when the music stopped.  Caitlin was concentrating so hard on the actions she forgot about sitting down and so was instantly out which upset her a bit!

He had a car cake (which looks very similar to last years…)

…and they sorted out the candles that I forgot!!

So they took care of it all and it would have been completely stress free…if Austin hadn’t managed to dislocate his elbow about 5 minutes into the party!  He kept going into the ball pool, but he hates it in there and kept wanting out…so we kept pulling him out and then his arm clicked!!  He was hysterical and holding his arm!!  We waited a while but he wasn’t stopping crying….  He is always bumping his head or falling over sometimes quite hard and he always stops crying almost straight away…but this time he didn’t…so I sent him off to A&E with Richard!  After a very long 3 hour wait he saw a doctor who twisted his arm around and popped it back into place and he was instantly ok.  It’s really weird he is using his arm completely normally again already as well!!  I hadn’t included him in the party numbers since I figured he was a bit too young to join in anyway and so had only paid to get him in but when I came to pay the bill they had deducted that as he’s left pretty much straight away so I was really pleased with that.

When we finally got home after we had collected Austin and Richard from A&E Noah decided to throw up all over the pavement….good of him to wait to get out of the car!!  And he has been throwing up ever since!  Good job I hadn’t made any plans for half term yet!!  But I hope he is better for his family party on Tuesday!!!

Wibble wobble…

Today I noticed Caitlin has a wobbly tooth.  She doesn’t seem old enough to be losing her teeth and she actually looked a bit concerned, but came around to the idea once she remembered about the tooth fairy!  A few people in her class at school have already lost some teeth so I suppose it’s about right!

I’m a bit gutted though as I had planned to make her a lovely personalised tooth fairy pillow with my new machine which I can’t really unpack until the building work is done.  I might have to just do a simple version if I can find any of my crafty things….although thats not a simple task since they are in Austins room along with a lot of other things!!

It mustn’t be hurting her either since she hadn’t even noticed it herself….  I should have guessed really, a while back a friend said her little boys teeth had all spread out a bit just before he lost one.  Caitlin’s teeth are already a bit gappy but they did look even more gappy recently.  I’m pretty sure there is enough room for the new ones with all that space!!

Baby bear

At Caitlin’s school each class is responsible for a couple of assemblies a year.  Being Caitlin’s first year they haven’t had one so far but this week was their turn.  Parents and siblings can go along to watch, but unfortunately Richard got called into work so he couldn’t go.  The theme for her assembly was Goldilocks and the three bears.  They told the story with actions and sang a few songs.  Caitlin played baby bear and so had to dress in her own clothes.  Her teacher had told her she could wear anything and Caitlin had obviously asked about a dress for which she was told yes….so Caitlin insisted on her party dress!  She looked a bit funny playing baby bear in a fancy party dress but she did all the bits required of her and it was a great assembly.

Yes please!!

At school Caitlin and Noah have to put their hands up…and sometimes at home they get carried away and do the same!  Austin being a complete copy cat also puts his up!!  I always think this is really funny and managed to catch him doing it……

A day of ballet

A friend found a ballet exhibition which looked great so we all went along.  We had to go fairly late as Caitlin had her ballet lesson first…her ballet lesson takes over the whole of Saturdays as its slap bang in the middle of it!

There were displays of the costumes and videos of the ballet shows which the kids loved dancing along to….

….and there were also costumes for them to try on and dance around in!  Noah had a great time dressing up in the tutu’s…I think he has a secret ambition to be a princess!!!

There was no photography allowed and I got told off for taking these so that was the best I could do especially since I forgot my proper camera!! 

We also got an I spy pack and tried to do the I spy activity but the telescope was pretty poor and even we couldn’t spy the things we were supposed to see never mind the kids so we gave up on that fairly quickly!  Afterwards there was just about time for a quick drink then it was hometime.

A hectic evening

Today was a mad evening!  We had too many invites to things and so I decided we’d try to do them all.  Caitlin had a party invite so she had to miss swimming but since Richard was on earlies he took Noah (and Austin) to the lesson.  Noah did really well and got the swimmer of the week sticker!!

Caitlin got dressed up in her twizeling out dress and sparkly shoes and we went to the party.  They had an entertainer who played lots of games with them all and she had a brilliant time.

They got millions of prizes sometimes 4 or 5 in each game!!!

We did wonder how the entertainer made any profit the number of prizes she gave out (and the fact that quite a few kids were just helping themselves all the time) but while they were having party food she went through their bags and rationed the prizes to about 6 each….still a good amount of prizes each but some kids noticed that a particular prize they had chosen was missing!!

It was a joint party and the mum of the girl had made Caitlin a special little plate of food with no milk which was great.  Caitlin was then ok to have one cake which she put her own “candles” in!!!  (tiny chipstick crisps in her fairy cake incase it’s too small to see!!)

After the party me and Caitlin walked up to her school for a family fun night.  It was a quiz and some games mainly aimed at the kids.  We did very very badly!!  It was questions from the curriculums off each year at school but since we’re only up to reception we didn’t know most of the answers….me and Richard obviously aren’t smarter than a 10 year old – or whatever that program is!!  There were also lots of questions about kids tv and we obviously don’t watch enough tele because we failed on that round too!!!!!!!  But Caitlin and Noah had a great time….

Straight after that I got changed in the car and went out with some of the mums from Noah’s school!!!!!!!!!!

Almost done….

The loft is (apparently) almost done!  They seem to think it will be complete in a week!  I really hope so I am sick of them being here and everything being all over the place!  Nothing is in its right place and I can’t even get in my side of the bed.

Once they go we have a bit of painting to do up there and then we can get flooring and move up.  We then need to fix downstairs!  They have made a complete mess of the now middle floor of the house and so we need to completely redecorate the landing and do some filling and painting in Caitlins new room.

Then we can rearrange all the furniture and have a big sort out!!!!!!!!!